Elemental's 1
by Ed Ainsworth
Summary: The First proper issue of the Elemental's series proper. Mark Gathers the team, we get to meet the players, and he lays his plans to bare. Stuff actually happens. Also, Darwin is in this!


Elementals #1 -

**ASTRAL GATHER MATRIARCH **

_**The Bridge of the Conquistador -**_

Mark sat at the head of the long thin table. There were many more seats than where required for the small number of inhabitants of the room and, with the majority of the attendees of this meeting sitting close to Mark, only Darwin sat a number of chairs away, preferring to watch from a distance. The table was made from aged metal that didn't reflect the grim face of Mark as he stared down its length, looking to the people who had been kind enough to indulge him and agreed to meet him to discuss his plans.

Sangre and Cadena, the two 'leaders' of the Children of the Vault sat on either side of Mark, eyeing each other worriedly, a look of desperate isolation on Sangre's blue features, as his lips and eyes drooped. Cadena's armour-encased hand on his knee should have calmed him but it only made him more concerned. Mark had said he would commit himself to finding their brothers and sisters as soon as they had addressed the issues at hand. It was more important, he'd told them.

In the next two chairs facing each other sat the She-Thing, her large orange form casting a shadow over her opposite's face, making it harder to see the face of the Isolationist. This was made more difficult due to the fact that he was wearing his hood, as he always seemed to do these days. Mark reminded himself to ask Josef why that was once the meeting was over.

Shuffling his papers, Mark got to his feet and cleared his throat again.

"Okay, you're probably wondering why you're here." Mark began

"Yeah, we're **all** interested in why _they're_ here, Mark," Sangre remarked, a hint of anger to his voice.

Cadena moved a hand on his shoulder to quiet him down.

"I'll get to that. First, I'm going to divvy up the missions. You all knew this was the start of something big, so the first step of something big is making it smaller."

"Should we start with your Ego, Diering?" Sangre piped up again, getting to his feet. "You can't just waltz onto my ship and give me and my family orders anymore than you can these people. They're not guests and I've not authorized my ship to be a...a...damn breeding ground for superheroes, or your 'mission'!

Mark held up his hand to quieten Sangre, which simply enraged him more.

"DAMNIT, MARK, you can't just treat me like this..."

"Just sit down Sangre, and I'll explain as I go." Mark's voice rose and Sangre sat. He knew how powerful Mark was, considering he had described himself as 'Bastard Hard', and Sangre didn't want to test his limits…for now.

Cadena gave him a disappointed stare and Sangre just looked at the table intently.

"Now, as I was saying, Darwin, you're going to need to go to the Falklands." He threw a docket towards Darwin at the end of the table. "Gonna need you to leave on that one straight away since I can't really have you hanging around too long, you know? It's a long term statement to get you to get off on this one; we need it ready to go."

He threw a document down in front of Josef, She-Thing and Sangre.

"These're for you all. Sangre, I know that you're annoyed because I said I'd help you find the rest of your family."

"You're damn right! You're going back on it in favor of this little glory seeking..."

"Lemme finish, yeah?" After Sangre quieted, he continued. "Well, this comes first, Sangre. We can't find your family if everyone on the planet is dead, can we? That'd defeat the whole point of looking for them."

Mark sat down as Sangre's face dropped. He had the attention of everyone in the room now. Undivided attention.

"In order to complete my plan, we need to go through some recruitment phases. The documents you have before you are the recruits we have lined up, including a gravity manipulator called Monopole; a Spider-Man villain called the Will O'Wisp, and yes, I know how that sounds; and a mutant called Chrome. I'm going to be doing my own little recruitment drive, but I need you guys to get these guys on my side and here soon."

Mark leaned forwards, his voice dropping in tone.

"My master plan is big and we need a lot of people to accomplish it. Basically, over the last month or so I've spent my time with Karima, the Omega Sentinel, trying to go through her databanks and find out what she knows."

He wrung his hands together and looked from Sangre to Cadena.

"We've not come up with much, but what we do know has prompted this plan. If the Celestial's are involved in any way then we need to make sure that they're removed, or stopped in their tracks, through any means necessary. Now, if you're all prepared, I'm about to reveal my master plan, so if you please, pens at the ready..."

_**A Small Town in Middle America**_

Her footfalls were heavy at first. She was attempting to get used to the gravity she had once known and loved. In her time, so far from here, the world was such a wreck. It was destroyed beyond recognition.

Every patched hole in this time was a gaping, weeping wound in her time. Mountain ranges collapsed as the tectonic activity that had been her pulse before had ceased.

Sweat trickled down the curves of her naked, blue skinned body as she walked from the burning field. She felt sorry for the crops that had been grown from tiny seeds and cared for by farmers to feed the world. They had germinated and grown, pushing their way through the tough soil into the air to face a constant barrage of insects and animal life, only to be burnt alive by her arrival.

Her body was unharmed by the fire, the heat and energy given off actually healing her, giving her the strength she required to struggle on through this great feat. Her hair, now completely white from the travelling, as well as her bleached blue skin, let off a faint glow as the heat was absorbed from the atmosphere, stemming the growth of the fire where-ever her feet tread.

The X-Men had known her in her previous incarnation as an entity known as Amalgam, travelling back in time to prevent something equally disastrous from occurring. However, this time it was not the future personality and power set of the X-Man known as Rogue she possessed. Along the way, in the biggest battle known to humanity, Amalgam had acquired the mindset, personality and what little power Gaia had left in her.

**Amalgam, whose identity was unrevealed until she absorbed the traits of Gaia. She now possesses the last powers of the spirit of the Earth, and has taken it on herself to come back in time to prevent the cataclysm that destroyed her world and her future.**

Using what remaining powers she had, she had thrown herself into the Black Hole at the centre of what used to be planet Earth and launched herself through time. She'd appeared, not long before the event was due to happen, and she needed to find Mark Diering quickly.

He was her only hope of survival this time.

_**The Conquistador**_

"I want Kate involved," Josef said, looking from Mark to Sangre, the latter shaking his head at Josef.

"No, we can't risk her involvement in this, Josef. You've only been allowed because we need your damn powers. Kate's just a liability," Sangre spat.

Josef turned his nose up at the man and got to his feet, leaning over the desk. "I think you are wrong. I think you are jealous that a human could achieve more in a few years than you have in your life."

Sangre got to his feet, water dripping from his balled fist as his scowling face met Josef's, bare centimetres from each other. "Jealous? I don't think so. She works for SHIELD. We don't exactly have a good working relationship with them, do we? The Children of the Vault are supposed to be in lock down, and Mark is wanted for Environmental Terrorism."

"Activism," Mark corrected as Josef waved him off.

"Kate would bring valuable resources to our mission. She is field commander of the Environmental branch of field. She has done excellent work on myself, and Sharon, as well as many others."

"She also shot me out of the sky in an F-16," Cadena piped up. Josef rolled his eyes and shot an appealing look to Mark.

"Sangre says no and I say no, too, Josef. She isn't right for this. You know our history; we'd distract each other."

"But..." Josef began before he was cut off by Mark.

"This isn't open for debate, Josef."

Sangre smiled a vicious smile as he and Cadena got up from their seats. Josef did too, scowling at the three of them before walking out of the room.

"He'll cool off, Mark," Cadena reassured before pushing Sangre in the middle of his back. "As for you, we'll be having words." Sangre let his head hang and muttered something to himself in Spanish.

"I for one think this is a brilliant idea," Sharon Ventura, the She-Thing, said. She had sat in silence while the others debated their thoughts on the situation and now it was her time to say her piece. As the group walked away from the table, all except Darwin, Sharon approached Mark.

"Mark, this is a great idea, but I need to tell you - Josef and Kate examined me. Any serious over-use of my powers could have really bad effects on this plan." She looked up at him, clearly excited to be in the hero game again but worried she might ruin it for the others.

"Like what?" Mark asked, putting his hand on her shoulder.

"I could loose them completely, which isn't the end of the world for me, but...it would literally be the end of the world for you. I'm not sure the plan could deal with loosing me from it."

"I've got a plan for making sure you don't run dry, Sharon. Don't worry about that."

"There is another possibility, Mark, and this is the one that worries me." She put her hands together and looked at the floor. "Kate found one of the people who had been transformed by cosmic rays. The plant man, do you remember? He'd transformed completely after he pushed his powers to the limits. He found that he couldn't stop his transformation…he turned into a tree completely."

She looked up at him, her eyes filled with tears. "They say he's got no brain patterns and he's completely inert. I don't want to die like that, Mark. I don't want to just become some horrible statue." She sniffed heavily and Mark took one of her large orange hands, kissing its fingers.

"And I promise you, Sharon, that it won't happen to you."

"How can you promise something like that?" she asked, gripping his hand tightly.

"Because I'm just that damned good."

Only Darwin didn't react to the plan. He sat in silence, watching everyone else's reactions. Mark knew him well enough that were he to disagree with this situation, he'd say something. As it was, he was taking it all in quietly.

"Probably reviewing the information." Mark muttered to himself, his gaze fixed on the bald Latino.

_**Serafina's quarters - Conquistador**_

Mark took off his trousers and got onto the bed on his knees, looking at his current girlfriend, the Child of the Vault known as Serafina. He swept some of her black hair from her shoulders and kissed her collar bone.

She stroked his shoulders, whispering to him.

"Did it go well?"

"Yeah. It went alright, I think everyone's on board. Jo's a bit annoyed we can't bring Kate in on it, but I think it's better for everyone if she stays out of it." He said looking up at her.

"So do I." She said quietly.

"You're only saying that because she's the Ex."

Serafina smiled and lay down on the bed, pulling Mark with her.

"Do you think that after this you can help us like you said you would Mark?" Her eyes twinkled in the twilight. The Conquistador was flying above the Cloud cover and the moon was full.

"I think I can, Sera. You know I want to help. I promise, as soon as we've done this I'll be on my best hunt."

"Good." She smiled, kissing him and rolling him onto his back, straddling his chest.

"Karima and I spent a lot of time fixing the equipment in the hold the last few days." She kissed his neck and he put his hands on her lower back.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. We fixed the Tele-transporters, and we've been drawing up designs for those containment rooms you asked for. I still don't understand why you're asking for these things. I mean, a room made entirely from Skyscraper grade re-enforced glass?"

"It'll become clear soon, Sera. Honest." He leaned up and kissed her, running one of his big hands through the back of her hair.

"Did you make the alterations to the crew quarters?" He asked suddenly, breaking away from the kiss. Sera nodded, and leaned back onto him.

"Karima and I did that as well, we tried to make Sharon's a bit more open. I'm not sure that I feel comfortable with her, Mark."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, she's only been staying here for a few nights, since she came back from her time with Jo, and…_Kate_, but I'm pretty sure I can hear her crying every night. It just makes me feel so..."

"It's called Empathy, Sera. You're probably not used to it since you spent the last 23 years in a virtual world." Mark stroked his hand through her hair, and smiled.

"Sharon's a fighter; she's just had a pretty big shock. She's pretty much been told she's changing from the inside out – That'd scare anyone. She'll get over it pretty soon. Promise."

"In the meantime, it just means that I can spend more nights sleeping with you." She beamed, moving back down onto his lips.

"Ain't nothing bad with that, Sera,"

_**San Francisco**_

Kate rounded the corner first, gun at arms length, pointed at anything that moved.

"SHIELD EM Unit. You have the right to remain silent, now show yourselves or I'll shoot."

"That is contradictory information Kate." Josef rounded the corner after her, his hood pulled down over his neck, as he crouched to connect with the Earth.

Within the park itself, a number of fairly gruesome murders had occurred. More importantly, the reason the EM unit had been called was to do with the nature of the murders. Mostly they were business men who went to the park for lunch.

Their primary connection was working for Roxxon Oil. At first it was thought it was a corporate attack, trying to whittle away at the management of the company, but the men were too low down in the chain of command to actually be involved in anything. The second clue was their actual occupation, they had all been at one time, or were currently, oil rig diggers. They controlled the huge drills that burrowed into the Earth's core.

"Hrmph." Kate managed, as she shone her light, crossed over her gun holding forearm into the undergrowth.

"Your input has been so valuable over the last few days, Jo." Kate shook her head, as he went to speak, showing that she was being sarcastic.

"Where have you been?"

"Annual leave, Kate. I have told you this." He replied, noticing a number of tiny rock fragments around one of the murder sites. He picked one up for closer examination.

"You? Leave? Right. Where were you really?"

"Kate, I do not have to tell you if I do not want too." He crushed the rock between his fingers and licked the surface of his thumb. Kate pulled a face in response.

"Come on, Jo. I've known you for years. You never take time off. Even when you were with…what's her name?"

"Bianca."

"Yeah, that Bianca girl. She was alright actually, not a nice name, but she was nice enough. Didn't she transfer out of our department when things went wrong with you."

"She pursued her career in LMD modelling." He responded, before holding up his flat palm.

"Some form of geo-kinetic, Kate. This is bed-rock, and the soil here is nearly a metre thick."

"Angry Geo-Kinetic. Check. Still doesn't explain where you've been going too."

Josef sighed, and got to his feet.

"I have been visiting the Children of the Vault since their reclassification in our files. I've found the company, and the conversation, particularly with the Children Sangre and Aguja particularly stimulating."

"Aguja, eh? Does someone have a girlfriend?" Kate smiled through her taunt as she jabbed Josef in the ribs.

"No." He responded calmly and pulled his hood up, looking into the distance.

"HA! You totally do."

_**The Falklands**_

Armando stood outside the large metallic base. It was a spire of technology that rose from a beachhead on the Falkland Islands. The winds and rain were fierce against the shoreline, though Armando didn't feel any of it. He'd developed very thick, waterproof fur over the entire surface area of his body, keeping the wind out and allowing the rain to simply slide off his form.

As he took a few more steps towards the spire, two very large drones with machine guns and rocket launchers detached themselves from the side of the building, swinging round and loosing their payload towards him.

Without any skill at all Armando leapt and flipped through the air, the missiles explosive power meaning nothing to him as he phased through it, his body manifesting it's power through his legs, now grasshopper like, and compound eyes, allowing him to keenly evade the bullets without so much as a conscious thought.

**Armando Munoez AKA Darwin - Armando, unlike most mutants, was born looking the way he does now and bullied throughout much of his life because of this. However, his mother still loved him. Armando was very much looked after until his mother died in a fire. Now learning how to control his power, he prefers to take a more relaxed approach to the hero game, reviewing information in an objective way rather than rushing in.**

Armando's mutant ability to be reactively adaptive meant he was the perfect agent to approach the more...angry components of Mark's plan. Unable to physically change his body at will, his body evolved and changed directly in accordance to whatever environmental stimuli had presented itself.

As Armando danced his way up the side of the shore, gaining inch by inch on the spire, the drones suddenly stopped their attack. The 'door' on the side of the spire, in reality just an opening made from two interlocking sheets of sliding steel, slid open and allowed Armando access.

As he walked into the darkness his skin adapted to allow him to see, giving off a bioluminescent aura his evolving eyes drank in like sunlight. He glanced around, the light intensity growing and revealing the dark spire; it appeared to be much bigger on the inside than the outside, perhaps some kind of interesting Tesseract technology.

Walking in silence, his body changed his footfalls to mimic the silence by inducing pads like on a cat's foot. As he rounded a corner, a woman stood there, her hair up in a bun as she leaned against the wall. The most shocking part of this was her appearance.

She appeared to be totally naked.

"Armando Muneoz, correct?" she began, her voice a soft purr as she moved towards him, running a hand across his chin.

Darwin's light emitting body allowed itself to strobe and changed into a variety of colors as he was obviously rattled, and excited, buy this turn of events. He scolded himself and nodded curtly. "Yes. I am Armando."

"A mutant called Darwin. You have the ability to...physically adapt to any situation. Does this not strike you as a particularly interesting power for all situations, Armando?" She cupped his chin and removed the pins holding her hair in the bun, allowing the black follicles to fall over her shoulders and onto his.

Her breath was heavy on his neck as he tried to arch his head away.

"It's useful in most situations, Ms..."

"Call me Astra, Armando." She took his hand and pulled him towards her private quarters. "I think we should test that situation now."

_**Hours later...**_

Astra and Darwin lay on either side of the bed. The sheets were on the floor and they were both covered in sweat. Her breathing was short and shallow, bordering on panting, while Darwin had a ridiculous grin plastered on his features.

"Wow," he said, looking at her.

She smiled, and rolled onto her side, a stern look washing over her.

"I don't do that normally," she said, almost as though she were telling herself off more than Armando.

He recoiled a little, but she took his hand.

"I'm a scientist, Armando, and a very good one at that. We pride ourselves on objective decisions based on information and I can tell you with certainly and not a hint of remorse that I am not a very nice person. I manipulate human genetics and I will continue to do so for as long as I can. But..."

She cuddled in close to him, pushing his arm around her, which seemed to bend and stretch unnaturally, responding to her physical stimulus more than his own.

"But I find your powers...very, very sexy. Uncontrollably in fact. You are everything I epitomise scientifically. You're all I want. Physically, you're perfect."

Darwin didn't know what to say and for a few minutes more they shared perhaps the most intimate part of their evening together, with a long, gentle kiss.

"There is a reason I am here aside from this, Astra." Darwin said after a few minutes.

She nodded into his shoulder and looked up at him.

"I thought as much, Armando. You need me for something, correct?"

"Yeah, we need you for something. I've got it somewhere in my uniform..." He stretched his other arm, scrabbling around on the ground until he pulled some documents from his clothes. "We need you to find someone for us, and then we need you to go somewhere."

She looked at him and sat up, taking the documentation and pulling her hair into a loose ponytail to get it out of the way of her face.

"I must confess, I've never heard of this David Lowell before, but his research seems to be quiet interesting." She flicked through the paperwork and put it down on the bed. She knelt before Darwin, who lay watching her.

"I have to ask, if I do this and we complete this 'mission' successfully, will I be seeing more of you, or less? Purely for scientific research of course; your powers intrigue me. If I could reverse engineer them..." Astra's eyes flickered for a moment and Darwin said nothing.

He thought about it, mulling it over in his mind though his silence obviously worried Astra, who said, "We could do the research later...even just some observational studying..."

"After what we've just done, Astra...I think observational studying might be pretty good for us both."

Mark sat in his underwear, an ill fitting pair of boxers, and held his head in his hands. Silence was all that penetrated the Conquistador this late at night. They were kissing the edges of the East American coastline. He ran his hands over his slightly stubble marked face, and sighed heavily.

The door slide open and in the darkness a glowing figure walked towards him. The Child of the vault known as Cadena was an electrical elemental. Her genetic make-up have given her elemental ability a little more than a physical representation. She was literally made of electrical energy.

Standing "naked" in the doorway, she cast a blue light across the room. Mark reacted by taking a deep gasp, and recoiling slightly.

"Christ, Cand, could you not do that?" He placed a palm over his forehead to try and block some of the light.

"Why are you awake, Diering?" She asked, hands on hips, giving Mark the feeling he was a naughty child. He smiled, and held up his knuckles. They were still pretty raw from the fight with the Celestial Gatherers*

(*See Marvel Fanfare #69 for more details)

"Just thinking, Cand. Just thinking," He gestured for her to come and sit closer to him. She sat down next to Mark, and they both sat in silence for a moment, looking out the main viewing window of the floating boat.

"I'm scared, Cand." He said after a few minutes. She turned to him, shocked by his confession. In their time together Cadena could not say she had ever seen Mark elicit anything over than confidence, and happiness. Fear was a comparative unknown to him, or so she thought.

"Why?" She asked, putting a hand on his shoulder. His skin smouldered slightly under her touch.

"I'm pretty sure I've punched pretty much every form of life and artificial life in this reality, and those things still scare the crap out of me. I hit it so hard I think I broke my knuckles, and it just took it. How can I fight something that's bigger than the tallest mountain?" He shook his head and traced his fingers over his almost-healed knuckles.

"Mark, you're a strong man, and you're a clever man, but sometimes you're just too one note for your personality." The electrical woman stated. She got to her feet, and kissed him on the cheek. He smiled and looked up at her.

"What d'ya mean?"

"I mean, you're concerned you can't punch something the size of a mountain with your fist, right?"

Mark nodded, arching an eyebrow as Cadena walked towards the door again.

"So don't punch it with your fists, Mark. Punch it with your brain."

Mark paused for a second, as the sun began to peak its red hue started to exert itself on the ocean below and looked from his fists to his faint reflection in the window.

"Oooh. That's quite good actually."


End file.
